Ep 5: The Relationships Guy
In the world of business relationships underpin everything that we do, as "The Relationships Guy" Lindsay can show you how to get into relationship quickly and leverage that relationship to influence others, connect with key business influencers and increase your sales
Podcast Transcript
Rael Bricker
Hi, I'm Rael Bricker, and I will be one of your hosts with the Business Excellence podcast.
Lindsay Adams
And I'm Lindsay Adams, I'm the co host.
Rael Bricker
And together we're going to be talking about what makes up Business Excellence. And we believe that you can never be perfect. All you can be is excellent. And in our businesses and in our lives, we want to achieve excellence. And that's why this is the Business Excellence podcast. Welcome to today's edition of the Business Excellence podcast. Today, I'm delighted to actually be introducing and interviewing my co-host, Lindsay Adams.
Lindsay Adams
Well, thanks, Rael.
Rael Bricker
It's a pleasure to be here. Lindsay calls himself the Relationships Guy, and he's a relationship marketing specialist. He works with business owners and salespeople to create better business relationships and ultimately, more sales. He's an accomplished conference speaker trainer and works around the world. And he's got an amazing speaking record. He's an Australian Hall of Fame speaker, a Certified Speaking Professional and the first ever Global Speaking Fellow is a past National President and Life Member Professional Speakers, Australia, and was the 2009 and 2010, President of the global speakers Federation, the group that looks after all professional speakers around the world.
In January 2020, as part of the Australia Day awards, he was honored with the Order of Australia Medal for his services, to the professional speaking industry, one of the highest honors in Australia and Lindsay is the only speaker in the world to be recognized for his services, to the professional speaking industry. So Lindsay, it's quite a career you've had and in the professional speaking industry, how did you get started as a speaker?
Lindsay Adams
Interesting question Rael. I had 24 years working in the public sector and I, I worked in the Australian Taxation Office for 18 of those years. I was a team leader in audit and I went on an audit management program where they were training auditors to be better managers and we it was it was a big extravaganza. In fact, senator Bronwyn Bishop made a big fuss about the waste of money that was being spent on developing staff in the tax office at the time.
So we started off with a one-week residential Bribie Island, north of Brisbane and we had some amazing learning and then we did a three-month work placement with an action learning project. We then had another week at the Byron Bay Beach Resort, followed by another three-month work placement, and then a week on Stradbroke Island, and followed by another work placement and then we all got together and had a celebration culmination handing out a final report about action learning project.
Interestingly, at the third residential program, end of day one the facilitator three different facilitators, so different facilitator, new guy, end of day one says, okay, boys and girls, we're done. Dinner's at seven. Lindsay, have you got a minute? So I go over to the guy, yeah, how can I help? and he said, Why are you here? You don't fit. You're not like these people and that question led to a three-hour conversation and he helped me understand I was in the wrong job. You see, I'm a people person. I'm the Relationships Guy, and I do relationships really well and I'm no good at audit and so that guy held up a mirror, and actually helped me understand I was in the wrong job.
Now, it didn't happen overnight, but it did happen. I moved out of audit and I went sideways into training. I spent the first 12 months training graduates how to be good auditors and from there I branched out into more and more generalist HR stuff. And I eventually left the Tax Office, went to Queensland Health went to Brisbane City Council left Brisbane City Council. In the year 2000, I started my own business, and here I am 20 something years later and it's quite an interesting journey and, you know, I've learned a lot of stuff along the way.
Rael Bricker
It is quite a journey from a tax auditor to professional conference speaker and now you've known around the world as the Relationships Guy. How did that come about?
Lindsay Adams
it's interesting, I do keep in touch with a lot of people. In my book, the DNA of Business Relationships, I wrote about how I learned to network which was from my eldest brother Neville. Neville is a great keeper in toucherer. If that's an English phrase. He keeps in touch with people. He's now retired, but he still keeps in touch and it was one of the things that I learned from him. When you make a connection, you make a heart connection, and you keep in touch with people and I was talking to a business colleague of mine a couple years ago, and she said, you know, you do this relationship thing so well, you're the Relationships Guy. And I said, hang on a minute, why did you say? she said, You're the Relationships Guy and I thought about that and she said, You should call yourself the Relationships Guy and so I went home, got onto Google and checked, and nobody had the web address or any of that stuff. So I went and got all the URLs and claimed the space and so today, I am the Relationships Guy. It's what I do. I, you know, I help people get into relationship and I help people leverage relationships, and I maintain lots of relationships around the world.
Rael Bricker
Relationships are so important to everybody, no person is an island and it's interesting, there is a TV show called Life Below Zero and one of the people on the show lives, in the most northern point, alone and has her only visitors are occasional pilots who pop in for fuel and most people cannot live like that, you know, relationships are critical in our life and in our business. Now, you've written a book called the DNA of Business Relationships, on how to engage, engage, expand and energize relationships and in the book you share about how you built your own house by relationship. Tell us more about that.
Lindsay Adams
The house I live in, in fact, tomorrow, the 11th of the 11th. So we're obviously recording this on the 10th of November. On the 11th of 11th 29 years ago, tomorrow, we moved into this house, and I built the house myself, me and my 70-year-old apprentice, my Dad, I took long service leave from the tax office and I built this house by relationship and what I mean by that is that every trades person who came on site was either known to me personally or recommended to me by someone that I trusted. Now, there were a couple of exceptions. However, some amazing things happen during that construction period. I
got on a plane. It was a Monday, the May long weekend, and I had to find a Canberra to work there the following week. My wife was not so happy that I was leaving on a Monday, the long weekend. But that's another story. Anyway, I sat on the plane beside this guy and me being me, said hello, started chatting. I said, so what do you do? And he said, I'm the state sales manager for Austral Bricks, I went bricks! And we started talking about, the fact that I was building my own home and we talked about bricks, how you make them, how they break them, how they sell them, you know, everything. When we landed in Canberra, he stood up, he opened up the overhead locker, took out his briefcase, gave me his business card.
I sort of looked at him a bit strange and he said, When you're ready, call me and, you know, I had that, silly naive look over my face and he said, when you're ready to buy your bricks, call me. I went, Oh, okay and so, went home, told my wife, this story, we got one of their brochures, we picked out a brick, we made an appointment, we went to see him and we said, we think we'd like that brick there and he said, No, you want this brick here. and that brick here was the most expensive brick in the whole range.
I said, Look, that's a beautiful brick, but it's outside our budget and he said, I told you, I'd look after you didn't I. And Rael, we got those bricks, so cheap. I swear, they fell off the back of the brick truck. It was amazing and so, you know, I started to look back, when I was writing the book, thinking about these experiences I had, and unpacking why they happened and what did I do that made those things come to light.
Rael Bricker
Interesting story, you know, you obviously struck a chord with him and built a relationship very quickly. So how do you do that when you meet someone for the first time?
Lindsay Adams
Okay, , the first thing and the simplest thing that anybody can do is focus on the other person 100%. I don't know about you, but I go to a lot of networking functions, maybe not so much in the last six months with COVID, but you know, in a previous life, we all went to a lot of networking functions, and you'd be talking to people and they're looking over your shoulder around the room while you're engaging with them. They're not really listening to you. They're looking to see who else in the room, someone else that's more exciting than you. So the first tip is when you're talking with someone is focus on them 100 percent, talk to them as if this is the most interesting conversation you've ever had in your life and seriously, it makes a difference.
Rael Bricker
Well, you've always said that, when you go networking, nobody goes there really to build relationships. Everybody goes there to sell things. Yes. So if you turn that around in your world as the relationships car, how do you go networking?
Lindsay Adams
Well, you know, the thing is, you're absolutely right. You never go to sell. Networking is always about building relationships. I went to a Chamber of Commerce meeting on the south side of Brisbane, this woman swung into the room, and I watched her she put a flier on every breakfast plate in the room. And then she went around, shook hands with everyone and exchanged business cards.
Hello, I'm Shirley, have you got a business card? Hello, I'm Shirley, have you got a business card and then sure enough, an hour after the meeting, I got an email from Shirley saying, Hi. Nice to meet you at the Chamber of Commerce meeting, here's my weekly special, how much did you want to order? Now she had made no effort to build relationship at all rail, it was just straight transactional, she thought she was going to sell us something and it was all based on price. And it's never going to work that way. So really, it’s relationship, first, business, next, second, third, whatever.
Rael Bricker
And so how do you make people are interested in talking to you and not looking over your shoulder? Trying to find the next person in the room that they can talk to?
Lindsay Adams
Okay, well, look, it's really simple. First thing is to find some common ground. You know, it's, things like, it's hot outside today? Or what about that football team? You know, what about that election in America? Now, be careful talking about politics. Be careful talking about religion. In fact, I don't, I will not talk about either of those things. But I'll try and find out something about you that we have in common that I can engage with. So you know, I might, I might say you're married? Maybe? You know, we might you talk sport? I don't know, it depends, but I'm going to ask you what I can to open up the conversation.
I get you talking and it's the old pareto principle thing, the 80/20 rule. If I get you talking 80% of the time, and I talk 20% of the time, you will leave the engagement thinking, wow, that Lindsay Adams, he's a nice guy. And really all I did was get you talking about you. And so you know, for our listeners Think about that. How can you help find something in common and get the other person talking?
Rael Bricker
That's very clever to ask them and get them to talk about the thing that are best, which is themselves.
Lindsay Adams
The next thing is this. Opening up the conversation, so I was at a conference in America last year and you know, the typical thing there was like, over 1000 people at a big conference, and I lined up at lunch at the buffet and I got to the head of the queue. There's a big pile of plates and knives and forks. So I took a plate and I turned around to the guy behind me I never met before I read his name badge and his name was Bob and I said, G’day Bob. Here's your plate and he went, Oh, thank you.
Lindsay Adams
Then he read my name badge, Lindsay, that simple act, I call it a small act of positive service. That simple small act of positive service. opened up a conversation Bob and I chatted over lunch. We had so much in common you know, I found the common ground, I got him talking and we finished after lunch an hour later, second best friends for life. I have an open invitation to stay at Bob's house next time I go by Kentucky. You know it, it's so simple. So, get the other person talking and then the other thing is Rael. Once you've finished your conversation, follow up. You know, extending the small act of service thing. If somebody if you if you're in conversation, when you finish, get the details, get their business card, whatever and send them a little handwritten note and say Hi, Rael. I'm so nice to spend lunch with you. Kind regards, Lindsay Adams. Now write a question for you. How many handwritten notes Have you received in the last seven days?
Rael Bricker
Yeah, not many. None in fact, None.
Lindsay Adams
None, and see it's a lost art and so want to make yourself stand out in the crowd, send a handwritten note, I've got little postcards I've had made up the DL size, they fit neatly into a DL sized envelope, a standard business envelope and I write a sentence or two and off, they put them in the mail. People treasure these little handwritten notes and I have a nice photograph on the outside and my contact details on the other side. So I go into their office and I see my photos pinned against their, the dividers around their desk in their office.
It's a memorable thing, they don't want to throw it away and so, you know, if you can't bring yourself to do a handwritten note, well then send a follow up email and always remember, what you've been talking about, I talk about my book a lot, so I send people a copy of my book, you know, or I might send them an article or I see a funny meme or something on social media, I might grab that and send it to them, whatever. But just to maintain that connection.
Rael Bricker
And so once you've started this, building the relationship, how do you ultimately get more business?
Lindsay Adams
Well, here's the thing. Everybody goes networking because they want more business. Okay, that's one of the primary purposes of networking. So it's relationship first business second. So here's how, here's two things that I do while I'm networking. I'm talking to the person, and I'm trying to figure out, could I do business with this person? And then I think to myself, yes or no, if it's no, then could one of my key four do business with this person? Now hold that thought and I'll explain what a key four is in a in a minute.
If it's a no, then I stop talking to them and move on. If I think I can do business with them, then I'll say something like, gee, Rael, it's been lovely chatting with you. I think we could help each other in business. How about we catch up for a coffee in the next week, to explore how we might do that. Now, Rael then has the opportunity to say to me, Yes, no, maybe. Now, if he if he thinks we've clicked, he says yes, then, I say Quick, get out your phone, let's book a time, or I'll give you a call later today or tomorrow. and notice what I said, I think we can help each other.
I mean that genuinely, if I can help them, I will. Now sometimes helping them might be selling them my product or my service, or it might just be I refer them on to someone else who can help them better than I can. I genuinely want to help the, but I also want to sell them stuff. Now, if I can't sell them stuff, or refer them to my Key 4 what's that I hear you ask? Well look at the palm of your hand, your thumb is you and there's four more fingers on your hand. That's your key four there. Four other people, the palm of your hand, is your target market.
Rael, you're a mortgage broker. So your key four would be a solicitor, you would have a real estate person, you would have an insurance person, you would have a building and pest inspector. So those four people all work with your target market, but they do not compete with you. So you can refer business to them. And they can refer business to you. And happy days, you can look after each other and they are the keys to unlocking more business. And so that key for and again, I wrote about in my book, there's a lot more to it and there's a lot of things you got to do to make it work. But that key four is a real key to unlocking more referrals for you and so you got to be thinking about that every conversation.
Rael Bricker
That's fantastic and enlightening and incredibly simple, but strategic in terms of how you go networking. Now, you've mentioned your book a few times the DNA Business Relationships, how do our listeners get hold of a copy of it? And just for reference, how do they get hold of you?
Lindsay Adams
Okay, really simple. It's available on Amazon. Just go and Google Lindsay Adams or the DNA of Business Relationships, you'll find it and how do I get in contact with me? It's complex. Listen carefully. It's Lindsay@Lindsayadams.com. Or you can go to my website, www.Lindsayadams.com . So there you go, pretty simple stuff, really and I would love to hear if anyone who's listening have any questions, you know, more than happy to answer them, drop me an email, send me a text. Take me out for dinner. I don't mind, but I'm more than happy to share the message that I have, and because I've learned that what goes around comes around.
Rael Bricker
It's fantastic. Thank you very much. Thank you to Lindsay Adams, my co-host and thank you for listening to today's episode of the Business Excellence podcast. We look forward to seeing you on the next episode of the Business Excellence podcast.
